Of Flower Girls and Falling Stars
by rallamajoop
Summary: Preseries Aerith fic. This is the world that would become Hollow Bastion, in its final days.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes:**  
Written because it's all very well for them to say things like 'our world was destroyed nine years ago', but then you go back and check the characters actual ages and you realise that Yuffie's only sixteen years old, and even Aerith's only twenty-two. These characters were only kids nine years ago. There had to be something more to the story to tell.

Contains vague spoilers for Kingdom Hearts I and II, nothing very major – dropping of some names, reference to some of the earlier Ansem Reports you pick up (particularly 5 and 9). Characters' ages were borrowed from Final Fantasies 7 and 8 (Yuffie – 7, Squall – 8, Aerith – 13, since this is set nine years before Kingdom Hearts). I've discovered since finishing this that some of these ages were changed in KH – too late to fix this without rewriting from scratch now though, so I'm going to have to beg artistic license and label this slightly AU. Identities of parents were likewise taken from the original games – and thanks to which, there are some not-quite-so-minor spoilers for those games; though it really isn't necessary to have played either of them before reading.

This fic has also surprised me by growing into my first ever real multi-parter, so expect more to come.

* * *

At exactly three and a half minutes before sunset, a star fell from the sky and landed with a fizzling splash in the duck pond in the castle gardens. A minute later a second found its way neatly down the centre of Merlin's chimney (a co-incidence he would later have to insist at considerable length was entirely deliberate and of his own doing); then a third followed, and a fourth. Whatever those early scouts reported back must have been good, because by the time the light was fading the flood-gates had opened and there were at least a dozen in the sky at any time, no matter where one looked. 

When the first fragments began to fall, no-one knew what to make of the meteor shower other than as an unexpected treat, and even in a land so well lit as the aptly named Radient Garden, it was still a rare treat indeed. The heavens rained a steady hail of star-stuff over the city and all the lands around until the middle of the next morning; some pieces large enough to sit on. Squall's father Laguna, less fortunate than most, was hit on the head by a piece the size of a tennis ball and spent the rest of the shower in bed, babbling about invisible pixies from the future. Most of the rest of the residents opted to keep to the relative safety of the indoors, watching the show through living room windows; candles put out and all the lights turned down.

Aerith watched the shower with her mother on the roof under the big beach umbrella, eyes aglow in wonder. The skies treated them to the sort of spectacle that grandchildren would have heard about a generation after everyone who remembered it was long gone. Pieces did not merely glow, they fizzed through the air, twirled in unexpected directions and shot off sparks like amateur fireworks. To Aerith's delight, about an hour after the shower began a piece bounced right off the umbrella and landed on the rooftop next to them, the glow gradually cooling over the next few minutes to a smooth, mottled green. And even though Aerith had been brought up on Ifalna's stories from a young age and already knew more about celestial bodies than anyone else in the city of her age, she still had to ask, "Is this really a fallen star?" Just so she could hear those tales again – how every star in the sky was a world as great as their own, how their own was a star in a thousand foreign skies.

* * *

The morning after the meteor shower, Cid showed up at their door with a handful of brightly colour fragments. "The whole town is covered with the stuff." He told her father with a grin. "Me, I've built planes out of everything that'll stay airborne, and I've never seen anything like it." 

"Nor have I." Professor Gast agreed, frowning and turning the pieces over in his hands. "But the study of materials is a fair way outside my line of research. Professor Ansem would be able to tell you far more than I." As Aerith understood it, Lord Ansem's area of research was absolutely everything.

Cid was less easily convinced. "You kidding? No-one's hardly seen that joker outside his haunts in months. Going a bit peculiar down there, if you ask me."

"His assistants assure me he's merely devoting his attention to a project of utmost importance, perhaps revolutionary nature." Said her father stiffly, the instinctive defense of the scientific community against those unappreciative jackals in engineering.

"Well, he'll be far too busy to play with stardust then. Look, all I'm asking is a little background research – find out if this really is a new substance. _That's_ your area, right?"

Professor Gast reluctantly agreed to take a few samples. Over the following days they were weighed, stretched, crushed, frozen, melted, looked up, referenced and cross-referenced, before being finally declared an absolute mystery. Even at his least enthusiastic, Gast was still a scientist.

* * *

The following week became a mad scramble as every kid in town collected as many fallen pieces as they could find. Cid had promised a model aeroplane – that really flew and everything, his own custom work – to the one who brought him the biggest pile by Sunday. On Saturday, Aerith found Squall sulking in corner of the Bailey – a practice he had turned into an art form at a young age. He'd left his collection of meteor stuff alone for barely more than a few minutes and someone had swiped the whole lot. With only a day to go and most of the town already wiped clean by eager youngsters there was no hope of him collecting even half the same hoard again in time. Aerith got Squall to give her his hand, and took them both straight to Yuffie's house. 

Godo answered the door. He thought the whole affair was funny, but then he still thought Yuffie was just 'going through a phase' in the healthy development of a young ninja; and put his daughter's fascination with all things shiny, sharp or brightly coloured down to her not yet being deemed old enough to play with the shuriken without supervision. There was no convincing him otherwise, even though it was getting to the point where Aerith was making these visits nearly once a week. The lead up was always embarrassingly predictable. Squall would tell Yuffie he got to be the leader 'cause he was the oldest, or Yuffie would make faces at him or call him names, or they'd do both in either order, and before you knew it they'd be scuffling in the dirt like the silly little kids they were. Squall, being the larger and stronger would inevitably come out on top, but by the time he got home he'd realise Yuffie had taken advantage of the confusion to steal his pocket money or his collection of brightly coloured marbles, or sometimes even his pendant. Aerith had long since learned that whenever she saw Yuffie heading home looking dirty and bruised but eminently pleased with herself, there would be a Squall to be found sulking in one of his favourite corners and in need of someone to play big sister and offer some moral support.

If Yuffie was in a particularly mischievous mood this could often mean they'd have to search half the town before she was found. Fortunately, while Godo might not have been willing to offer any longer term solution, he was at least able to assure them that both Yuffie and the stolen goods were at home today, and point them in the direction of her room.

Finding Yuffie so quickly was not really as satisfying as it could have been. There was in Radient Garden a resident by the name of Scrooge who had, up until the still mysterious events of a few Christmases ago, been the wealthiest man in the city. In those days he'd had the reputation for hoarding money with such fervour that (if rumour was to be believed) the man even slept on a giant, glistening pile of his own amassed wealth. When they discovered Yuffie, she was not similarly sprawled on a pile of pilfered meteor fragments; however she was lying on her bed and had left pieces spread all over the place, so that the end effect was at least similar enough to be irritating.

"Finders keepers!" She crowed in her best sing-song voice. "You snooze you loose!"

"…'re supposed to find them yourself." Squall complained. "Cid _said_."

"I did so find them myself!" Yuffie squealed back. "You weren't guarding them or anything!"

"Yuffie…" Aerith warned, silently promising herself that from here on out she was going to leave these situations to be dealt with when Raine got home from work. Squall started picking random pieces off the floor.

"Hey hey, you can't take them all, some of those I found _first_!" Yuffie complained.

Aerith knew it was all doomed from that point, there was no hope either of them would remember who's was who's. Either they'd be spending the rest of the afternoon sorting through the collection, or Squall would declare he didn't care anymore and go home in another sulk, and Aerith was slightly horrified to realise that the latter seemed so much the better option.

It was then that Godo stuck his head around the door, winked at Aerith and 'reminded' Yuffie that if she wasn't ready in five minutes, she wouldn't get to try out the new smoke bombs today. Yuffie's eyes went as wide as saucers and she tumbled out the door in a green-and-orange blur. Her entire stash was conveniently left behind to be sorted through in relative peace.

Aerith and Squall left shortly thereafter, with what had, under her supervision and after a few careful reminders about honesty and two wrongs not making a right, remained a convincingly modest subset of Yuffie's meteor collection. The Sunday deadline arrived the following day, and Squall's collection was dutifully transported to Cid's to be weighed against everyone else's. Cid laughed too when he heard the story, but Squall got his model aeroplane and they all got ice-cream for helping out. Then he disappeared into his workshop and wasn't seen for two weeks.

* * *

About a month after the meteor shower, one final star fell from the sky, circled the town three times and landed in a not entirely ungraceful manner on the castle postern. The single occupant who emerged was definitely not human. 

"Don't worry, I come in peace." He squeaked to the startled castle staff. "I'm betting your leader lives in this here castle, right?"

By the time news reached the town, the visitor had long since disappeared into the bowels of the castle, where only cleaners and the occasional late night fast-food delivery dared to venture. No more was seen of their mysterious, extra-arbourial visitor outside the castle for several days. Meanwhile, Cid emerged from his workshop for the first time in weeks and camped out next to the ship until the owner returned. He would later categorically deny all and any allegations of drooling.

Cid's persistence would pay off, as he managed to be one of few to see the ship's owner when he finally re-emerged – albeit briefly, as he never set foot in the town during his whole stay, and both ship and its diminutive pilot disappeared back into the sky almost as soon as he re-appeared. The whole incident was the talk of the town for as long as it took people to come to terms with the fact that so little was actually known that there was very little to talk about. Even then, it raised no end of speculation, especially once 'inside sources' (chiefly a couple of maids and a cook) confirmed their visitor had been the king of another world personally come to seek the advice of Ansem the Wise. The boost to national pride lasted some time.

Cid himself had little interest in any of that. His disappointment at missing his chance to take that incredible ship apart was matched only by his enthusiasm at discovering such a thing to be possible at all.

"Dam – darn rodent wouldn't let me look at the schematics." He grumbled in Aerith's hearing later, but Cid always grumbled, even when he was also grinning from ear to ear. "Said all the plans were back at the hanger and he was in a hurry. Took off like the end of the world was on his tail. Still, 'Gummis', eh? Knew I was on to somethin'. You give me a month – two on the outside – and I'll show you a ship that'll fly circles around that mouse wheel he was piloting."

The following day, Ansem reappeared in public for the first time in weeks. He openly declared that he had lately taken to dedicating too much of this time to his research and had allowed himself to neglect his other duties. He said very little on the subject of what had occupied him so completely in the preceding months, but assured the people of his intention to take a more active role in the running of his kingdom in the future. Ansem had never been a very public man, preferring even at his best to manage his country (on those few occasions when the system he had long ago devised failed to managed itself) from the comfort of the castle, but for a while at least messages directed to him received prompt replies, and carried his very own royal seal. For a little while, life returned to normal.

* * *

This then was Radient Garden in its final days. If these events should have been recognised as omens they remained deceptively low key. There was no madness in the streets, no messengers bringing portents of doom, no misshapen animals born to mothers of the wrong species and relatively little fire raining from the sky. The end of days crept up with no more drama than a cloud passing over the sky. 

What there were were the reports of people going missing. It was easy to overlook in the beginning, because the first to go were the ones who no-one would immediately miss – the ones who no-one knew very well, or who'd worked in the castle all their lives and were seldom seen outside it. People like Biggs and Wedge from the castle guard, or Lucrecia, another young scientist who sometimes worked with Ansem's assistants. Only later did the more noticeable start disappearing – Julia from the nightclub in town, or the old lady from the bakery down the road, or the girl from Squall's class at school. But it happened so slowly that by the time the population began to notice, it was already all but too late; and messages to Ansem on the subject now produced only the briefest of replies – he was aware, he was investigating, there was nothing to fear.

The one other warning-that-could-have-been was the appearance of the monsters, or talk of creeping things seen at night, or rumours of sightings of shadows of things that were little more than shadows themselves. Laguna had any number of new stories to tell on the subject, but Laguna had been a member of the castle guard until only a few years before and could still be found patrolling his old routes in largely harmless fashion most weekends, and he always had some sort of story to tell by the time he got back. Even though he went on reporting them weeks after he should have recovered, most of his audience put it all down to the after effects of the incident during the meteor shower. Seeing black spots was a standard symptom of a concussion, wasn't it?

A few reports of monsters made it as far as the ears of Ansem's assistants on the rare occasions they left the castle, and they showed enough interest to ask some questions – who had seen what and where. When it came to explanations, however, they all either downplayed the situation or repeated much the same answers the letters had contained. Ansem knew what was wrong. Ansem would find a way to solve things. Ansem was working on the problem day and night, and most of the people, having little other option, believed.

---

A little over a week before the end, Aerith answered the door to find one of Ansem's assistants had came to see Professor Gast. It was Braig, a man she'd met a few times in the past; he had a glass eye that never looked at you straight and was far too loud to be a proper scientist like her father. He looked that day like he hadn't been sleeping much lately, his grin was even more manic than usual. Gast did not seem especially pleased when Aerith told him about their visitor, but went to see what he wanted all the same.

"All under control." Aerith overheard Braig telling her father. "Or it will be, once our professor Ansem finishes the next stage of his research. You should rethink lending us some of your expertise, we're moving into whole new territory."

"Thank you." Gast said, not sounding very thankful. "But we've discussed this already, and I still have my doubts that it's territory I have any place in."

"Do us the honour of reconsidering, at least, will you?" Braig produced a sheaf of papers which he pushed into Gast's hands. "Have a look at what we're working on. Maybe you'll find it more interesting than you expect."

Even the way he walked away looked strangely tired to Aerith – tired like the way her father looked in the eleventh hour of some of his most important projects. She would never decide, not even years later what he'd really meant that day, whether he was even more tired than he let on - his visit in truth a veiled cry for help, whether he'd had some more sinister motive, or whether he had, ultimately, been telling little more than the simple truth.

The report he'd given her father had the name 'Ansem' in spidery handwriting on the front. It was only a few pages long, but her father locked himself in his office with it and stayed up all night. The next morning he went out and locked the office behind him.

Aerith did not steal the key to her father's office. She was a good girl who had never done anything like that before. She wasn't even entirely sure that there was a spare key, or where it would be kept if there were. However, she was entirely guilty of offering to keep an eye on Yuffie while both her father and Godo were out, and may even have pointed out the locked office and mentioned something about a big shiny key hidden somewhere in the house, right before going to the kitchen to find some cookies. She was definitely guilty of ignoring several suspicious noises from the lounge room while she was away.

Yuffie was a little surprised how little trouble she got into when her babysitter discovered the key in her possession, particularly given Aerith's usual reaction to that stuff, though Aerith did still make a very definite point of taking the offending item back and making Yuffie show her where she'd gotten it before she left.

Aerith waited until night to sneak into the office. Long after her parents were asleep, she crept quietly out of bed, lit a candle and tried out the borrowed key. The report was sitting on her father's desk. What she found was no more than a few scattered extracts from a much larger document. Pages were numbered at random, out of order, with most of the parts in between missing. A lot of what she read sounded like a fairy tale – all about people's hearts and magic keyholes and monsters born from darkness, but there was no happy ending.

Aerith would not discover exactly what happened to their world until long after it was over, nor learn why it was their world where it began for years longer still – but when she did begin to make sense of it all she would remember that report and wonder what secrets were hidden in those missing pages; just exactly what else the greatest sage of their world others might have discovered about the coming dark.

* * *

It would be easy to say when it was all over that there was no warning, but more honest to say the lead up merely skipped a few steps towards the end. The sun rose on that last day without fanfare of any kind and traveled the day along its usual path across the sky. People went about their business unaware of anything out of the ordinary. 

By evening there were storm clouds gathering over the castle, dark and heavy, but not unseasonal enough to raise any comment. Hours after sunset, the shadows went on lengthening. The darkness came, rising from somewhere deep below the castle foundations like a black tide. Drawn by the lure of thousands of beating hearts, the Heartless descended on the city, an army that only grew in strength with every stifled scream.

It was been said in some chronicles that the Keyblade is the only weapon that can destroy the Heartless, even that to do so is its purpose, and to a degree that is the truth. However, there have existed worlds populated by enough of those of sufficient strength of heart and body that they have held the Heartless at bay for years on end, until hope – or the darkness – finally came. Radient Garden was not to be one of those. Although it had been a peaceful place for centuries, their world should not be imagined to have been utterly unable to defend itself – it had its fair population of magicians and ninjas and ninja magicians; of guards and soldiers both active and retired. It was simply not prepared for an attack that came from within, but even had there been time to mount a proper defense, by the time the Heartless broke on the city it could not have mattered much how hard people fought them. The battle was lost from the moment the Heartless gained access to the world-heart beyond the Keyhole, and both Keyhole and Door lay in the foundations of the castle where the invasion began, far behind.

In Aerith's household, Ifalna spent that evening unaccountably tense and uncomfortable, but couldn't or wouldn't tell her family why. It made Aerith uncomfortable too in sympathy, but there seemed to be nothing she could help with by staying up, so she put herself to bed at the usual time. Ifalna stayed awake long after, staring into the light of a single candle on the table until it had burned down almost to the base.

Shortly before midnight, Aerith woke from a horrible dream that there was something else in the room watching her – so real that even on waking she could still see two pairs of glowing yellow eyes peering hungrily at her from the gloom. Then something leapt and landed on her chest hard enough to knock the wind out of her, and there could no longer be any sort of doubt that this was no dream. The creatures attacked not with teeth or claws but some power far more sinister. It felt like someone had reached into her heart and found every horrible thing she'd ever done or seen or even thought, wrapped their fingers around it all and tugged. It hurt like nothing she'd ever imagined.

Ifalna was the room before her daughter had finished screaming; the monsters banished in a flash of holy light. Her mother hugged her and didn't let go until they were both sure she was alright.

Gast was in the doorway by the time they looked up again. "Ifalna, what…?"

"They're gone." Ifalna still didn't release her hold on Aerith. "Gone for now, but there'll be more. Gast, it's those creatures – the corrupted."

"Heartless." Gast uttered the word like a curse. "The report implied they were multiplying. Ansem must have know this was coming – we have to get to the castle. He'll know what…"

"No, no, no." Ifalna shook her head violently from side to side. "It's too late, they're everywhere. The whole planet is screaming at me, they've taken its heart and now they're coming for every living heart they can still find. You don't see, it's too late. Far too late."

"Ifalna," Gast's voice sounded horribly quiet. "You don't mean that."

"I can feel the world coming apart under my feet." It was barely more than a whisper spoken into Aerith's hair. "It's over."

Ifalna's family was reputedly the oldest in the land, had been here even before Ansem's line in the days before the worlds were scattered. She had spoken with the planet for as long as Aerith could remember, had long taught Aerith how to listen for those sounds, so loud and deep that ordinary people forgot to hear them. She could tell you where to plant flowers so they'd grow taller and brighter than anywhere else, she had told everyone that the meteor shower was no danger, and they'd believed without question. If the world was ending, she would know.

Gast knew Ifalna better than anyone. He was the scientist who married the storyteller and never saw any inherent contradiction, who would test the theories no-one else cared for, who would go on looking for hope until it had been proven no hope could be found. "How long do we have? Can we make it to Cid's workshop in time?"

Ifalna did not understand the strange request, but replied nonetheless. "I think… yes, I think so."

"Then we might still have a chance. Come on, we have to hurry."

The streets outside were swarming with Heartless, some just like the creeping things that had invaded Aerith's room, others in a dozen other different shapes. The sky outside was lit up to an intensity it hadn't boasted since the meteor shower, not with falling stars but with eerie vortexes of swirling energy, illuminating the land with an unhealthy glow. A dozen paces away stood Laguna, his old gunblade held ready to take on anything that came too close. As soon as he saw them he waved them over, unwilling to move as long as Raine and Squall watched from the relative safety of a small alcove behind him. Ifalna's light soon cleared them a path.

"You've got me all embarrassed now, I was going to offer you some help, but now it doesn't look like you need it." Laguna told them appreciatively when they joined him, visibly impressed by the ease with which Ifalna's magic forced the Heartless aside. "Ifalna, I never imagined you had it in you. Hey, I bet you could've even shown some of the soldiers back in the guard a few things."

It did not take long to discover that Laguna was making his own way to the castle. He'd had much the same idea as Professor Gast, but wasn't happy to be told the battle couldn't be won.

"Now, I've spent enough years in the army to have seen my share of monsters – didn't I tell you about that time with the dragon and…" If audience or opponents had allowed, he might well have told them the whole story right there. "…and… well, I know I did… what I'm saying is, if we get everyone together, these aren't anything we can't handle."

"Laguna, these aren't like any monsters you've ever seen before." Ifalna assured him evenly. "There isn't anything at the castle that you can help with, but making it to Cid's is our only hope. We have much better chance of making it there if you'd escort us. Please."

Laguna scratched his head. "Well, you put it like that, how can a man refuse?"

Raine took less convincing. The look in Ifalna's face alone was close to enough.

The walk from their home to Cid's workshop was usually barely more than a five minute affair. Today it took four times that long, and felt like twice as much again. By the time they arrived, Ifalna was sagging in her husband's arms, drained beyond anything her magic had ever done to her before. Godo had gotten there before them, his own daughter in tow. Yuffie's eyes had again assumed their saucer-like state, but she wasn't staring at anything except space. Godo's hands twitched restlessly over the pouches attached to his belt where he kept his shuriken and smoke bombs and all other tools of the trade. You could tell by the deflated shape of them that they were all but empty.

The ship filled most of the workshop, more brightly coloured than anything that space had ever housed before thanks to the gaudy nature of the Gummi-material to which it owed its existence. From beneath it came a litany of swearwords which Cid was making no attempt to moderate for the benefit of young ears. At the sound of the newcomer's entry he pushed himself out from underneath, looking much as he always did when he was working - covered in grime, with tools in both hands.

"Shit, is that everyone that made it? Maybe just the two extra thrusters will do after all." He muttered, apparently to no-one.

"Cid, is the ship ready?" Gast spoke up anxiously. "Will it…"

"Oh, she'll fly, don't you worry. I'll have us all out of here, just need a few last minute modifications and we'll be away." Cid assured him, with a not too obviously forced grin.

"Wait, what modifications?" Raine demanded. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I just…" Cid began, but the sight of all those hopeful faces stopped him. "Oh, to hell with it, I can't lie to you folks. The Gummi ship's barely a prototype – her maiden flight wasn't even meant to be until tomorrow. Most of the boosters are just sitting loose. In her current state she'll take one, maybe two of us, any more than that and she'll never make it off the ground."

The silence that greeted his words was desperate.

"Look, I'm not having you all give up, I can…"

"What about the children." Raine interrupted. "One or two adults, but there's room for the children, isn't there?"

Cid was even more visible taken aback by that suggestion than by the idea they'd all given up. "Miss Raine, don't go talking like that. I can have the other boosters hooked up in only…"

"Cid!" Raine stopped him again, just as Gast burst out with "Damnit, Cid!" at the same moment. Cid shut up appropriately fast.

"Cid, just take them, please." Ifalna's voice sounded even weaker than before. "You know as well as we do there's no time."

"I've put Yuffie in the back." Godo put in, appearing from the hatch behind Cid in a move that would have made everyone jump if they'd had any surprise left that day.

Cid looked from face to resolute face. "You aren't going to give me any choice, are you?"

"No, Cid. Not today." Ifalna whispered.

"I do recall you owe me a favour or two." Gast added, squeezing her hand, almost smiling.

"Just promise us… you'll take good care of them." Ifalna finished, for both of them.

"I'm too young for this. Damn it all, I'm never going to be old enough." Cid grumbled, but he'd never looked more sincere than when he said his next: "Ifalna, Gast, Raine, Laguna, Godo, I swear, I'll get them out of here if I have to leave my own skin behind to do it."

Raine was already carrying Squall over to Godo to be passed up through the hatch, hugging him tightly and whispering urgently to him until the last possible moment. With a sudden burst of panic, Aerith realised she was the only one left. So uninvolved had she been in the conversation to that point that the realisation of exactly what had been decided for them all did not hit until her father turned to her then. Had her heart not already been nearly torn out once that night it might have burst right there; she found it abruptly very hard to look either of her parents in the face, even harder to look away.

"Aerith, we aren't going to let you argue either, do you understand? You…" Gast was left temporarily at a loss for words, so he folded his arms around her and hugged her tighter than he had since she was a little girl who got lost in flowerbeds in springtime. "I know you'll be alright. You're my daughter. Ifalna's daughter. Take care of the other children, Cid will need your help."

"Aerith," Ifalna reached for her, "You need to know… This isn't – this doesn't have to be goodbye. Worlds don't disappear forever. Hearts stay connected, things lost in the darkness can always be found again. There will be a way back here, but you'll have to find it from your side. Never forget."

Aerith was too big to be carried like the others, she must have walked to the ship, climbed the ladder with her own hands – and the feel of the rungs in her hands would be familiar when she climbed down them again later, sense-memory – but the next thing she really knew then in any way that registered was that she was on board the ship and Cid was climbing up and pushing past her and the hatch was closing…

"Wait a moment," Laguna hopped on to the ladder, hefted his gunblade and slid it inside, next to Squall. "I'm not the sort to be needlessly optimistic, but if the ladies have it right, I'm not going to be needing it much more here, right?"

"Dad?" Said Squall. It was the first word he had uttered that whole night.

"So it might take you a while to grow into, but hey, you'll get the hang of it in no time." Laguna was obviously grappling for words. "And, uh, you'll need to make sure you keep it polished, take good care of it, that sort of stuff. And… the girls too, take good care of them. You understand right?" His face pleaded for Squall to understand everything he hadn't the time or the words to say.

Squall nodded mutely, sniffled and rubbed his eyes. Cid muttered something unintelligible and yanked the hatch closed, and that was the last any of them saw of their home.

Even had the ship been able to carry everyone, it was hard to see how they could have fitted. The inside of the ship was not merely cramped but blatantly barely complete; the walls a mass of open panels and loose wires. The cockpit consisted of one seat and just enough space to get into, out of and around it without edging past the walls; the back section was little more than what connected the cockpit to the hatch.

Cid began some sort of pre-flight ritual, which seemed to consist largely of banging on things and swearing at them until they stayed on. "Better find yourselves something to hang on to." He yelled back at them, and the engines roared to life on perfect cue. The ship took off as though gravity had suddenly attacked it from two extra directions at once. The vessel shook so hard the walls rattled and made far too much noise, but they were moving; already up to the few feet off the ground needed to make it out of the hanger. Scared, but still far too curious not to need to know at least a little of what was going on outside, Aerith crawled far enough towards the cockpit that she could see a little out the front window and make out the square of light that marked out the door of the hanger getting larger in front of them. As soon as they were clear the ship surged forward, though for a long time they were covering more distance than they were gaining altitude; by the time they'd traveled halfway across the city they still hadn't risen beyond the height of the tallest towers of the castle.

Just as they were clearing the city limits there was a loud bang as something crashed into the side of the ship, then another from the other side. Something that didn't show up against the sky as anything more than a black mass with those horrible yellow eyes leapt right on to the front window and landed so hard the whole ship lurched with the impact. Cid yelled something that sounded nasty enough to have been invented specially for the occasion and wrenched the control column around in a motion that made metal shriek all over the vessel. The ship went swinging in a crazy circle, and for several dizzying moments Aerith wasn't even sure which was up. She lost her balance and was tossed sharply into the side, and she must have screamed or made some sound enough to remind Cid she was still there, because the next time he had breathing room he was yelling "Damnit girl, get in the back!" and it was almost more than she could manage to obey.

The rear of the ship was scarcely any better than the front, the main distinguishing difference being that from here you couldn't see what was making the ship lurch around. Despite Cid's prior instruction there wasn't really anything to hold on to back there – except the handle for the hatch, and they could hardly risk accidentally wrenching that open with the next big lurch, so they held on to each other. It wasn't easy. Yuffie wasn't catatonic anymore, but now she wouldn't stop crying. Squall just sat and gripped the gunblade in stony silence. The weapon was nearly as tall as he was. He couldn't lift it and could barely even drag it across the floor with a horrible screeching sound, but he wouldn't let go of it and he held on so tightly his knuckles went white. Aerith could hardly have lifted it either, but she didn't know nor want to find out what would happen should another jolt sent it flying point-first into one of the panels, so she held on to it as tightly as she could too. They stayed like that for what felt like a long time.

It was hard to tell exactly when things calmed down outside over the natural motion of the ship and the loud rattle of the engines, but it did occur to Aerith eventually that things had gone quiet. She disentangled herself from the other two and went to see what was going on.

The cockpit smelt of smoke, but going by the cigarette butts littering the floor, that didn't mean any worse than that Cid had called a temporary truce in his war on 'that nasty teenage habit' of his. He stubbed out what looked like his fourth when he heard her come in. "Sorry about before. My girl here," he patted a panel, "was having some teething problems. She should be all leveled out by now."

Aerith peered out of the scratched window covering the front of the ship. The stars didn't look any closer than they ever did back home. "Where are we going?"

"Dunno yet. But that mouse didn't come out of nowhere, so what I do know is there's somewhere out there to go. How would you like to do the honours? Pick me a star – one of those nice big ones that don't look too far off."

Aerith tried to remember everything her mother ever taught her. She closed her eyes, opened them and pointed to the first bright light she saw.

Back in the rear, Yuffie was curled in a ball on the floor. It was strangely quiet.

"Shh." Squall whispered as she tiptoed over. He was holding his pendant in his hands. "She's asleep. I said she could play with this if she wanted, but she gave it back again."

"We're all tired. It's okay." Aerith whispered back.

"I don't want to be Squall anymore." He told her, turning the pendent over with his fingers. "Squall should stay back there, with Mum and Dad. I'm going to be a lion instead, like him. Lions can take care of themselves."

"Even lions need names." Aerith said.

"Then I'll make up a new one."

Aerith promised him they'd think up something good.

Less than an hour later, Aerith was falling asleep between an eight-year old lion and a seven-year old ninja, in a ship piloted by a twenty-something pilot who took navigation advice from a thirteen-year old girl. Silently, she promised them all that they were going to be alright. They'd find a safe harbour. They'd find their parents again and someday, they'd rebuild their Radiant Garden and go home together. They'd do it all by themselves if they need to.

They aren't going to be children forever.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**Notes:**  
Since chapter one was fairly complete as a fic in itself, this part would really be better labeled as a sequel than a second chapter. On the other hand, it does lead directly on from the first part and doesn't make a lot of sense on its own, so this seemed the more appropriate way to post it. There are still two more parts left to go (plus one very short omake, which may or may not be posted here thanks to all the insane formatting restrictions), but since those stand much better on their own, I'll probably post them as separate stories.

* * *

When they arrived, Traverse Town was little more than a firm place to stand in the endless nothing of the cosmos. The world was so small it had _edges_, the sort you could have walked to and looked right off, no more than fifty paces away in any direction. Nevertheless, it was somewhere to land long enough for Cid to figure out which part of the engine was making all that noise, and they weren't in any position to be particular. Flying most certainly did not agree with Yuffie, for one, who woke up a short while before they landed looking rather green. The moment they touched down she half-fell through the hatch and actually hugged the ground. 

No-one ventured far from the ship. There wasn't far to go. The only structures of any real note were a couple of half-ruined houses, if you could have called them houses, for they were in such a state of disrepair as to give the impression that they'd be abandoned a century before without ever being completed. Despite his initial claims, the ship Cid had actually produced in that couple of months could not have flown circles around anything, not unless the something stayed perfectly still and everyone aboard had stronger stomachs than most people. There was nothing to do but wait until it was declared airworthy again. Squall kicked a pebble around in a tight circle in stony faced concentration. Aerith looked up at the sky with all its stars in different places, and tried not to think of home.

They hadn't been there much more than an hour, however, before the looming question of where to go next was taken away from them. In the sky above, a moving star appeared, one that gradually resolved itself into the familiar shape of the brightly coloured ship that had visited Radient Garden only a few months before. The king pulled up alongside Cid's ship, executing the kind of elegant landing that their pilot could only dream of, and the pilot literally bounded out of the cockpit. Aerith had of course heard of the king's visit to Radient Garden and seen his ship a little from a distance, but the first clear thought that went through her head on getting their first good look at him, was that the description 'short and mouselike' hadn't been any exaggeration.

"Oh, it's you again, you worldhopping rodent," grumbled Cid. "I was wondering when we'd run into you next. Out to cover the whole universe, are you?" Which really was, given their circumstances, as civil as anyone could have expected him to be.

The diminutive ruler declined to take any offense. "I don't usually travel this much, but this is very unusual. I'm certain this world wasn't here when I came through this route last," he told them, as though he was discussing mildly unusual weather. "It's Cid, isn't it? We met outside Ansem's castle… couldn't be more than a few months ago. Looks to me like you didn't need those schematics after all. I think congratulations are in order - I never imagined you'd have your own ship up and running so fast."

Idle compliments in that situation were all it took to push Cid past breaking point. "By the skin of my goddamn teeth, more like it. Hell of a maiden voyage. The garden is_gone_ your _majesty_. Me an' the kids are everyone that made it out alive. The whole place blew up behind us.

"You can keep your damned schematics. Three months on that goddamn ship and the best I can put together carries one man and three brats and splutters its way into the sky, makes it way half way across the universe and dies on some nowhere world. Just you give me one more month – one little peek at those precious plans – and I'd have had this thing flying like a bird and the next prototype ready to carry ten times the load. So no, of course I didn't need any of your goddamn help, you…" Cid ground to a halt and let his head fall into his hands. It took him a while to get himself back under control. "Sorry, hell," he muttered through his fingers. "I know that wasn't fair, but, shit. Can you blame a guy?"

The king's smile faded like a light flicking off. "Your whole world? What in the name of the stars happened?"

"Hell if I know." Cid ground out. "I come home one evening and the street's crawling with these creatures. A bunch even got into my workshop, and damned if I've never been glad to have a nosy ninja for a neighbour before, but…"

"Heartless," Aerith put in. "The creatures, they're called Heartless."

Cid looked at her curiously. "That what your moth… Ifa…" He shook his head, gave up and delivered the rest of the sentence looking into the middle distance. "Is that what she called them?"

The king coughed politely and regarded them both with a serious expression. "It sounds like this is going to be a long story. I can see we're going to have a lot to discuss. I don't know how much help I can offer you poor folks, but you're all welcome to come stay at the castle for as long as you like. My world isn't far from here. We can talk in more comfort there" "

"Sure, nothing here worth sticking around for." Cid replied with feeling. "The ship'll survive another leg. Lead the way."

Certainly a good idea in theory, but getting Yuffie back on board the Gummi again was a different matter. She dug in her heals and refused to budge an inch.

"No! Not getting back on that ever again _ever again_ EVER!" she screeched.

"Maybe you youngsters should come in my ship instead," Mickey suggested kindly. "No disrespect to any of Cid's work, but I'm sure I'll give you a smoother ride."

Yuffie frowned and had to be carried on board as a neurotic little ball in Aerith's arms, but at least she behaved herself for the trip.

* * *

The king's was a small world, but bright and comfortable. The castle was a starkly different building from the one they'd left behind back home. The king lead them all up from the hanger, through an ornate garden and up to the palace steps before they met some of the world's other residents. 

"Donald! Goofy!" The king called to two unusual figures standing in the hallway. It was fairly clear from the looks on their faces that neither had expected guests.

"Who're they?" Donald spluttered.

"These are our guests, Donald." The king replied. "It's a long story – and hopefully I'm about to hear it. Would you and Goofy mind keeping an eye on the little ones for a while?"

"Well sure," Goofy started, but Donald cut him off.

"I thought we had _rules_ about outsiders." He glared at the newcomers as though he expected them to launch a raid on the castle any second. "You can't just go picking up anyone and bringing them here."

"I'm aware of that Donald, and you'll have to trust me that these are very exceptional circumstances," said the king firmly. "Now, Miss Aerith, Mr Cid, if you'll follow me through here, we can talk in the library."

Donald settled for strutting irritably in a full circuit around the two youngsters so he could examine them from all angles, finally stopping to stare suspiciously at Yuffie from roughly where he started. Yuffie stared back for a few seconds, then poked him very deliberately in the eye. Squall had to put a lot of effort into not laughing out loud at Donald's response.

* * *

"Now, you were saying before that Ansem was researching the Heartless?" The king began. 

Despite its enormous bookshelves towering towards the ceiling far over their heads, the library was a well-lit and spacious area, certainly as comfortable a place for this conversation as they could hope to find. The three of them filed into a small study area off to one side, equipped with a desk and chairs – though by unspoken agreement it was decided this subject matter would be better dealt with standing.

"No-one knew what he was researching," Cid replied to the king's question. "Though it sounds like Aerith has run into some information I haven't," he added, not unkindly.

Aerith made sure she dragged her eyes back from the various titles on the nearest bookshelf, to which they kept wandering when she tried to think about the past. She found there was no way she could look both of them in the face at once, so forgave herself for speaking facing the floor. "Yes, my father was…" ( - _is_ - ) "a scientist. He's worked with Ansem a few times."

"He worked with Ansem on this?" Cid sounded appropriately incredulous about that idea.

Aerith shook her head slightly. "One of Ansem's assistants showed him part of a report about what they were working on. It talked about the Heartless at length."

The king folded his arms thoughtfully. "This is all very strange. When I went to see Ansem he was studying the darkness of the human heart. It seems to me these Heartless would have to be related – but when I spoke to him he was concerned his research was becoming dangerous and terminated the project. Something must have happened to change his mind."

"What sort of something?" Aerith wondered.

"I can only guess what might have happened, but Ansem isn't a reckless man – he must have had some reason for reopening his research." The king spoke with the kind of conviction no-one would seriously consider arguing with. "If the Heartless started appearing, if he had some clue that the world was in danger, that might well have been enough."

Aerith considered this. "When his assistant came to see my father, he didn't make it sound as though there was any danger."

"Yeah, come to think of it, that's the same thing they were telling people when those Heartless things started showing up," Cid added.

The king seemed to be about to offer some theory on this, but he hesitated and shook his head. "It's too hard to say. The problem is we just don't have enough information." He looked thoughtful. "Exactly what happened after you left? You said there were monsters, but can we really be sure the whole world was destroyed?"

Aerith and Cid glanced at each other, but neither had considered that angle. "Before we left there was someone – hell, it was Aerith's mother, I mean, and she has this way of knowing this stuff – and she seemed pretty sure our time was up. I'd trust her judgment further than my own, but we didn't exactly stop to look back on our way out. I wouldn't have a clue what might be left there."

"Then the first thing we need to do is find out," Mickey declared. "I'll take my ship and go back there. Just maybe, I'll find something that'll give us a clue. In the meantime, I think you all deserve a good rest."

"Are you sure you want to do that on your own? I could…" Cid started.

"I promise you I'll be careful…" The king pushed the library doors open. "This way please, I can at least get you settled in before I go."

Aerith and Cid were led out of a side door, down a long corridor and up a short flight of stairs. The door at the top led to an ornate bedroom with a single occupant with undeniable resemblance to the king himself.

"Good morn…" She began at the sound of the door opening, then caught sight of the others. "Oh, my."

"May I present Queen Minnie." The king declared as he ushered them through the door. "Minnie, may I introduce Aerith Gainsborough and Cid Highwind. I've invited them and two of their younger companions to stay at the castle for a while. I have some important errands to run which I don't want to postpone, so can I ask you to help them get settled in while I'm away?"

The queen clapped her hands together in delight. "It's an honour to make your acquaintance," she declared, reaching up to take their hands in greeting in turn, handling the whole situation with a relaxed dignity that Donald could only have dreamed of. "Guests! It seems like so long since we've had any. Welcome to our castle. Of course we can find you somewhere to stay."

The king nodded and smiled in satisfaction. "I expect I'll be gone a few hours, but in the meantime, why don't we give them the guest rooms in the West wing? They might need some dusting, but there'll be plenty of space."

"That sounds perfect," Minnie agreed. "Now, have you been given a tour of the castle yet? Right this way, please."

"Invited to stay, very posh. Almost like we had somewhere else to go." Cid muttered, just loud enough for Aerith to hear on their way out, though for the rest of the process of finding guest rooms he was on his best behaviour.

* * *

From then on, it really was just a matter of settling in. The castle was as pleasant a place to stay as anyone could have asked, but after all that had happened was disappointingly anticlimactic. The end of the world had been and gone and now the universe seemed to expect them to get on with their lives. 

Mickey never reached Radiant Garden. The closest he could get from any direction of approach brought him up against a field of floating asteroids, in between which hid dozens of tiny ships of unfamiliar design which would begin to snipe at him as soon as he came into range. Cid listened to all this with gritted teeth, gave the inevitable tirade about the Gummi ships' lack of weaponry and decent shields and started making lists and sketches of new parts he'd need.

Cid's way of coping in those first months after they arrived was to throw himself back into his work on the ship and keep as busy as possible. It was a huge relief to him to have the primary responsibility for the care of three children removed. He was – in his own words – not cut out to be a hero, or a parent, and he was only too happy to relinquish both roles to the more qualified residents of the castle. He didn't quite resume his old work habit of vanishing for weeks at a time, as he'd always made sure to make at least an a awkward attempt to check on all the kids he'd rescued every day. At other times he would of his own accord, usually complaining about flying rodents and the damn chipmunks that were giving him another headache.

"It always used to be my dream to build a ship that would fly me up into space some day," he told Aerith once. "Just doesn't seem so important now that I don't have the old hanger to come back to."

Goofy offered to give Squall 'a few pointers' on using the gunblade. The resulting session did not go well. By the time it was all over, it had been well and truly established that wielding a gunblade and bludgeoning the enemy with a spinning shield were two arts which had next to nothing in common, and it was further established that no-one other than Squall was going to get to so much as touch that particular heirloom for a good long while.

Donald took to counting the castle cutlery, and shortly thereafter confirmed his suspicion – pieces were gradually disappearing. The following day he caught Yuffie in the garden trying to fashion makeshift shuriken out of a pile of pilfered forks. Caught red-handed, Yuffie did what any self-respecting juvenile ninja menace would have done and legged it. The ensuing chase took them half way around the castle, overturned fifteen pieces of furniture and broke four expensive pots and a table; ending fairly abruptly in Daisy's room. Yuffie got a slap on the wrist, while Donald got a twenty minute lecture on responsible behaviour and picking on little girls. Yuffie stuck her tongue out at him from behind Daisy's skirt. Situations were all but reversed in just the following days, however, when Daisy's jewelry became Yuffie's next target.

Aerith spent a lot of time in the library, or in Minnie's company. There had been no queen in Radiant Garden during Aerith's lifetime – but the role could conceivably have been invented just for Minnie. Aerith discovered that she was a kind soul, and if in her presence everything suddenly caught up with you and you started to cry without any apparent reason, she'd understand and she'd stay there for as long as you needed her.

The most truly notable event of the period took place one Sunday afternoon, when Merlin appeared in the throne room in a puff of smoke. Cid (who was not technically allowed to smoke in the castle but had enough faith in the ventilation of some of the larger rooms to occasionally risk it) nearly swallowed his cigarette.

"Your majesty! _Your majesty! _" The elderly magician hollered. "Something terrible has happened! Something…"

"Merlin?!" Blurted Cid. "How the hell did you get here?"

Merlin blinked through the clearing smoke cloud. "Ah… young Master Highwind, isn't it? What in the universe are you doing in the king's castle?"

"That was my question." Cid reminded him, stubbing out his cigarette to avoid further mishaps. "I shouldn't be surprised you know the mouse."

"Mouse?" spluttered Merlin. "That mouse is a king renowned on worlds you've never even heard of!"

"Well you can tell him that when he gets back." Cid informed him. "He's off on another one of his trips, probably won't be back until this evening. You can break your terrible news then."

"Or maybe even earlier, if he's running early," piped up a voice from well below eye level. Cid and Merlin both jumped – neither had heard the small door open. "Merlin! I thought I smelled smoke," the king exclaimed, prompting a coughing fit from Cid that had absolutely nothing to do with any stubborn nicotine addiction of any kind. "I should have known you'd make it out of there in one piece."

"In one piece?" Merlin exclaimed. "You mean you knew what happened to our world?"

"Of course. I've known for weeks. Cid here and three children were the only ones we knew of who escaped. They've been staying at the castle with me ever since."

"Wait just a sec." Cid cut in. "You mean to tell us you didn't know what happened to the Garden until now? The hell have you been all this time?"

Merlin positively fumed. "I'll have you know I was away on a journey when the unspeakable calamity that befell our world occurred. I hadn't the slightest inkling until I tried to take myself back home not an hour ago and found myself landed on an asteroid floating in space where my house should have been!"

Cid wasn't mollified in the least. "Mighty convenient. Bet the rest of us would've liked that freedom to just pop out of there at will."

"Cid, you shouldn't be so harsh," said the king. "The worlds may be disconnected, but most of them have at least one or two residents who know perfectly well what else is out there – or even have visited others. And Merlin may have powers most of us don't, but even his magic can only transport one person between worlds at a time. We met years ago, but I still had to wait until a way for my ship opened up before I could visit his world. It doesn't make his magic useless." Merlin looked vaguely sheepish, but didn't contradict any of this.

"Fat lot of good it did those poor bastards back home." Grumbled Cid, but beyond that little more was said on the subject.

Merlin took over one of the many castle guest rooms and was unpacked and settled in in no time. Two days later, he was gone again, allegedly on a mission of investigation and information gathering of the utmost importance, but the long and short of it was that no mere change in the base of his operations would quell Merlin's love of travel. He did find the time between trips a few weeks later to tell Squall that he knew a thing or two about heirloom swords. Squall told him, reasonably politely, to go away.

Before long, Cid was taking his modified Gummi ships – which now boasted engines which purred rather than spluttered and really could have flown circles around his first prototype (if not yet the king's much sleeker craft) – on longer and longer test flights. "Strangest thing, " he brought up over dinner one evening. "You can see all those stars out there just fine, but I can't for the life of me find any way to get anywhere close to landing on most of them. Some kind of a weird field keeps pushing me back." At the other end of the table, Yuffie waited until Squall was looking the other way and flicked a pea at him with pinpoint accuracy. Squall pretended not to notice. Hard.

"That'll be the world shields." Micky explained. "There can't be more than a handful of worlds out there that are properly connected. The shields keep out just about everything else."

Cid considered this new item of information. "Kinda takes the fun out of space flight, if you ask me."

"Maybe, but you have to remember, those shields keep out unfriendly visitors the same as friendly ones. It might keep the worlds separated, but it also keeps them safe," said the king. The fourth pea proved to be Squall's breaking point. Yuffie made a face that strongly suggested to all in view that she'd just been kicked under the table.

Cid looked thoughtful. "What about our world? You visited us way before everything went critical. Why didn't we have one of them shields?"

"You used to. It was destroyed a short while before I got there. You remember the meteor shower you told me about?"

Cid paused a few seconds as the implications added up in his head. "All that Gummi stuff came from our shield? Damn, never would've thought."

"The Heartless," Aerith put in. "They started appearing around the same time. A few people saw them around the town long before that night when they attacked in force."

Down the table, Donald had definitely noticed Yuffie's expression. "Squall," he warned. "You aren't teasing Yuffie again are…" He stopped as a carrot bounced off the side of his head. Yuffie giggled in a way that really wasn't going to do her cause any good.

"That's one hell of a big coincidence. You think losing the shield is what let them in?" Cid suggested.

"There's got to be some kind of connection," Mickey agreed.

"But… my mother said the meteor shower wasn't anything to fear." Even after all this time, Aerith felt her throat tighten; barely. She blinked her eyes a few times and did her best to shrug it off.

"Maybe that's only because the shower itself wasn't the danger," The king suggested. "Or maybe we're all looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it was the Heartless that destroyed the shield in the first place."

"Lotta maybes," Cid complained, speaking louder now to be heard over the full blown food fight that was breaking out at the other side of the room.

Mickey shook his head. "There are just too many possibilities at the moment and not enough information."

"Then what can we do?" Aerith wondered.

"Well, we can always do some research," Mickey suggested. "There's no reason to believe this is the first time something like this has ever happened – maybe we'll learn something that will let us start narrowing those possibilities down. We can keep improving the Gummi ships too – maybe some day we'll have them up to scratch to take us back to your world again and see what we can find there. But in the meantime, there isn't much we can do except wait and see." He paused, looked around the room, and sighed. "And right now, we can send someone in to do something about the mess…"

* * *

The wait had its advantages – it gave them plenty of time to prepare – even in ways that would not see fruit for years afterwards. Though certainly no such distant concerns were on Squall's mind when someone knocked on his bedroom door a few evenings later. 

The king pushed the door open. "I thought I'd find you here. Do you mind if I join you?"

Squall nodded a bit. The king ambled in and quickly spotted the gunblade, given place of honour on a side table that carried nothing else. "That's the one your father left to you, isn't it? Do you mind if I have a look?"

Squall wasn't too keen on anyone else near it, but this was the king. "'Kay."

Mickey lifted the weapon up with enviable ease. He examined it intently for a few minutes. "It's impressive workmanship. It's similar in design to any other heavy blade weapon, though the trigger mechanism would add an extra dimension to how you'd wield it."

"Goofy and Merlin already tried to tell me they could show me how to use it. They hardly knew what it was," said Squall, a little sulkily.

"Well, I'd wager I know a fair bit more about swordplay than either of them, but the truth is I can't teach you to use it either," the king told him without a trace of embarrassment. "This weapon is going to be far too heavy for you to use for some years to come. But what I can do is get you started on some basic swordsmanship – everyone starts with a practice weapon. And when you've had a few years of that, maybe you'll be ready to try out the real thing too."

Yuffie spent a week pretending not to watch Squall's practice intently before the king asked her whether she wanted to join in. Yuffie told him ninjas didn't care about stupid sword stuff, and the king replied that that was a shame because Squall could really have used a sparring partner his own age, even if that partner was learning to use different weapons and techniques.

Yuffie only held out for a couple of seconds before asking: What kind of different weapons?

And the rest very rapidly became history.

* * *

In the end, they'd wait the best part of three years to see anything. Then, one night, Chip and Dale came pelting into the castle with urgent news - they'd actually been outside to see a star disappearing from the night sky. Before first light the next day, Cid took his now many-times-upgraded Gummi and flew straight towards the new empty patch in the sky. Many tense hours passed as everyone else waited for him to return. 

Twenty four hours passed before Cid's Gummi reappeared. Cid emerged with the crazed energy of a man too overtired to rest, but otherwise unscathed. "Waste of a trip. Wasn't nothing left there to find," he reported. "Nothing but asteroids and those damn Heartless bug ships and a whole lotta empty space. The new shields and guns really paid off though." He staggered a little at this point and had to be forced to sit down before he did himself any damage. "That's not all either – you all remember that backyard-scale world where we ran into Your Majesty – the one you said wasn't there yesterday?"

"Of course I remember," said Mickey.

"It just got a whole lot larger. Bunch of new people just showed up there too. If you want to call 'em people, anyhow."

The new residents of the proto-town turned out, as Aerith and the king discovered one short argument with an obviously sleep-deprived Cid and a slightly longer Gummi flight later, to be a family of tiny white creatures with bat wings and pom-poms on their heads who called themselves moogles. They were understandably disoriented and had no idea how they'd arrived in such a strange place after their world vanished, as they'd certainly had nothing like Cid's ship to take them there. However, they were (as it turned out) a largely nomadic group by nature and were not as attached to their home world as they might have been, and quite familiar with moving to new places. A few of the younger ones were far more excited by the whole affair than they were scared.

They politely declined the king's offer to let them stay in the castle. The moogles loved nothing better than craftwork and discovering new materials, and the town, which had now doubled in size and begun to accumulate all manner of intergalactic flotsam and jetsam, was voted far too wonderful an opportunity to pass up. The news their world had disappeared without a trace left them understandably distraught, but after debating the matter, the whole group agreed that the castle didn't sound half as interesting as the place they'd washed up.

Over the years that followed, Aerith and the other residents of the castle would gradually come to understand rather more about the strange little world that would soon acquire the title of Traverse Town. It was a world that truly had not existed before the first of the greater worlds was destroyed, a place between light and darkness build entirely of debris generated when other worlds were torn apart. Sometimes whole buildings would pop into being undamaged, their occupants no more than shaken. Others the world seemed to build of its own accord from whatever material was available. It was a twilight world, a place where objects and people would simply wash up unexpectedly - in fact, by the time Sora arrived there many years later it was approaching the size of a small city. It would also make one of the best sources of information the king and his guests would ever discover.

Once the introductions were over and the moogles beginning to get settled in, they were able to give accurate descriptions of several varieties of Heartless that Aerith recognised instantly from that final night of terror in Radiant Garden, quickly removing any doubt that the two worlds had indeed met the same fate. Beyond even that though, they had something even more valuable to offer – some of them had actually witnessed a stranger who'd appeared to be able to command the Heartless to do her will. The moogles described a horned woman dressed all in black who'd towered over them like a monster (though, to be fair, much the same could have been said of Goofy – scale is a rather a different matter when you stand less than two feet tall). They were even able to supply a name.

"Malificent?" declared Merlin on hearing the tale. "Why, this is simply terrible news!"

"Friend of yours?" suggested Cid.

"Most certainly not! I'm pleased to say I've never met the woman." Merlin countered indignantly. "But I doubt very much there's anyone in my distinguished field who hasn't heard of her. This Malificent is a witch of the of the darkest of powers. With an army of creatures such as those Heartless at her command I dread to think what she might become capable of."

"Worse – we already know," said the king, shaking his head sadly. "Two whole worlds – gone completely. And if we can't do something, who knows how many more to come."

"But why?" Aerith wondered. "She'd never even visited either world before. What could she have to gain by this?"

"For a monster such as Malificent, what gain does she need?" Merlin replied. "Mark my words, now she's come this far she will not stop until she's seen every world in the universe consumed by the darkness. Our only option is to find and take care of her before she strikes again – and I fear we may not have much time. I doubt she'll wait half as long before she makes her next move."

This was easier said than done. Barely a month had gone by before the next star winked out of the sky, and within the next hundred days, another four had followed it. Merlin vanished muttering something about spell components and contacts, and for a long time was seen only sporadically (generally when he popped back to get something and landed in the wrong room, which was really not so different from business as normal where Merlin was concerned). Cid and the king spent day after day flying loops around large portions of the galaxy looking for signs of trouble, but there seemed no way to predict where Malificent would strike next. Whatever power had kept the Heartless at bad the last two years seemed to have evaporated overnight.

Even on the occasions when they found worlds under attack before it was too late there was rarely much they could do. Mickey once battled Heartless on one world for seven hours before the earth started to crack beneath his feet and he had to race to get back to his ship in time. The stories of Malificent that arose from the survivors made Merlin's warnings far too easily believable. There were a thousand stars to choose from, and little pattern to the attacks.

"Even if we do find her I don't know what we're supposed to do about it." Cid complained after so many months of hunting without even a decent lead to show for it. "Crazy witch who chews up worlds like taffy isn't anyone I want to start an argument with."

"Actually, we might have more on our side than you think," replied the king. "Worlds are living things, just like the rest of us. You don't have to tear one apart to destroy it – one blow to the heart is all it takes. Their hearts are protected, of course – they're not easy to get to – and the individual Heartless might not be too much of a problem, but with an army of this size, finding a way to a world heart might not take long. If we can just take out the person in control, maybe that'll be all we need to do to stop this."

Aerith did not say anything, but something she'd read somewhere about doors and keyholes teased at the back of her mind.

Most of the meetings held in that period were unanimously voted to be best kept from the ears of anyone younger than fifteen. Squall and Yuffie found themselves locked out of the library a lot during meetings, to their growing mutual irritation. Yuffie in particular had never been happy about any place she couldn't get into.

"What are they talking about in there?" Yuffie complained, pacing from one side of the locked doors to the other for the seventeenth time.

"Grown-up stuff," said Squall, slouched against the door on the far side. The king was supposed to have taken them for training an hour ago; his original hope that they'd be done in there any minute had dried up some time back.

"It's a stupid castle anyway!" Yuffie complained. "Proper castles have secret passages and trap doors and stuff and you can't lock anyone out of anywhere."

Squall considered this. "You think our castle did back home?" He'd only been inside it a couple of times, his dad made it sound like all the important stuff in the world started out there, and Squall was sure he'd have known if….  
…Squall really didn't want to keep thinking about that.

"Bet it did," Yuffie chimed in, oblivious and for once in her life the less easily distracted. "Hey, bet even this one still has _attics_. You can get anywhere in the house from an attic."

"We'd get in trouble," said Squall, who did not need any further prompting to tell where this was about to go.

"You only get in trouble if you get caught," Yuffie sang back. It was practically her motto.

Squall looked up from the fascinating pattern of cracks on the far wall he'd been studying for the last fifteen minutes. "How would you even get up there? There aren't just ladders hanging down all over the place."

Yuffie was momentarily taken aback, then inspiration struck. "From the roof! I bet ya there's a way in from the roof!"

On the one hand, getting involved in Yuffie's plans was a recipe for disaster. Squall knew there was every chance the whole plan would backfire and they'd be not only caught but in really serious trouble by the time that happened. On the other… "There's a low bit on the roof around the side with that angel statue on that big stone pedestal thing. I bet if we both pushed it together, we could move it close enough to climb up there from."

It took the others an hour to find the errant children when the meeting finally adjourned, with much running around and triple-checking of already checked spots and general panic. However, when they were finally discovered, sitting quite quietly on the roof of the ballroom in the Eastern Wing, so distracted by the view of the sunset from this angle that their original mischief was forgotten, no-one had the heart to punish them nearly as soundly as they had first intended.

Meanwhile, Traverse Town, had swelled to more than five times its original size. There was no longer any question of offering all the refugees the option of staying at the castle – quite apart from the inconvenience of hosting so many guests the town was rapidly accumulating more people than even the castle had rooms. Besides, with such a giant influx of new people and things, the world was rapidly approaching the point where it would be able to support itself. The king and the residents of the castle did make a point of organising regular supply trips to provide a number of important things that it couldn't always find for itself though – like food and clothing and medical supplies. Given how miserably they'd failed to protect those poor people's worlds it seemed the least they could do. Goods were distributed from a small shop which Donald and Goofy were put in charge of operating, much to Donald's chagrin – it was a job he would be only too happy to pass off to three of his more enthusiastic nephews a number of years later, when the young ducklings would finally be old enough.

The opportunity they'd been waiting for finally came in the sixth month, heralded by the reappearance of Merlin one evening right in the middle of the dinner table, and in so much of a rush to pass on his story that he got halfway through the tale before the smoke had cleared. He'd been visiting another king whom he'd apparently had some business with some time back and had actually been there to see the first of the Heartless appear right in front of them. Dinner was cut rather short that day.

Within an hour, the King, Donald and Goofy were boarding one of the Gummis, all three armed with weaponry that bore little resemblance to the practice swords that Squall was getting so used to. Everyone, even the children, were there to see them off. The atmosphere hummed almost as loudly as the warming engines of the ship.

"Well, this is it." The king announced on the Gummi steps, with very little of his usually unfailing smile in evidence. "I'm not going to waste our time with big speeches, but you all know how much this chance could mean – to everyone, and I want you all to know we aren't going to waste it - and we'll be back again, just as soon as we can make it. Donald, Goofy, are we ready to go?"

"Ready aaand waiting, sire!" Said Goofy, throwing a sloppy salute.

"We'll show those Heartless!" Donald chimed in with a flourish of his staff. Neither of them had been party to all of the theorizing and secret meetings which had taken place since the death of that second star, but you hardly needed extensive research into the subject to know that the Heartless were bad news.

Moving with the utmost dignity and poise, Minnie took one step forward to stand right at the feet of the Gummi steps ."Take care," she reminded them. "We'll be waiting for you, however long it takes for you to make it back." She raised a hand to Mickey, which he kissed elegantly, and then turned amidst shouted farewells and calls of encouragement from all present and disappeared into the ship. The Gummi rose smoothly and shot off into the night, its destination an unfamiliar world under siege half a galaxy away.

Waiting and seeing was a lot harder in the following hours than it had ever been in the last few years before. Merlin, of course, had an extensive list of expertly categorized reasons why he couldn't possibly just magic himself back over there to check how they were doing, which he would launch into the moment he began to suspect anyone present was about to so much as broach the subject. Destiny, intergalactic interference and the rules of engagement as observed by a half dozen different cultures made up the start of it (no-one stuck around to hear the full list, although it was possible Minnie might have, had something in her infinitely patient demeanor not flustered the old magician so much that when it came to making that speech in her presence he summarized it down to a handful of quick points entirely of his own accord.) Twenty four hours passed without sign or omen. One day became two, and two became three. No flying ship returned, no stars fell, no newcomers appeared gasping and disoriented on the bordering streets of Traverse Town, although Cid was finding ways to stretch the simple task of maintaining the supply shop there during its usual owners absence to a full time job.

The tension stretched but couldn't continue rising much further by the end of the fourth day; if anything, by then, things had calmed down enough that people could talk to Merlin over dinner in relative safety, and Cid sometimes stopped long enough between trips for an almost-conversation. The chipmunks started stocking fireworks for the celebration that would ensue the moment the king returned. Yuffie and Squall kept each other busy inventing new training exercises of varieties which their official instructor would have never imagined (nor approved). Aerith began the task of replanting one of the larger garden flower beds in time for the coming spring. Daisy sorted through her whole jewelry collection three times, her dresses twice and her shoes four times. And Minnie, as the reigning monarch of the castle, managed to be everywhere she was needed both in the king's stead and in her own duties, and somehow, at the same time, was always waiting in the same place for the long awaited sign of an answer in the sky.

It was two weeks and three days of nervous nights half-watching for any sign before at last the king's ship came gliding neatly home to land. Chip and Dale wasted no time - by the time the hatch was fully open the skies were aglow with exploding rockets to welcome the returning heroes. The king and companions emerged from the ship with bashfully surprised expressions, and for most of the evening not even the tale they had to tell was half as important as the chance to welcome them all home.

The journey and battle had been as hard and long as the long wait suggested, but all was confirmed – Malificent had been defeated. "I wish I could say destroyed," Mickey had to clarify eventually. "But the best I can safely say is that she's gone for now. We managed to save the world she was after, and I don't think we'll be seeing her again for a good long time."

There was more to tell too, and far stranger things to report. "We found out why the Heartless have been so hard to track. Often we'd see them appearing and disappearing right before our eyes. No wonder the world shields can't keep them out, they're using corridors of darkness to move themselves around."

"So that's how whole worlds were going kaput before we could even get there." Cid scowled.

"I know none of you want to hear this now, but we can't assume everything is going to get easier from here. We've bought some time, but we can't be everywhere at once, and we already know how difficult it is to predict where the Heartless will strike next," Mickey declared, bringing the festivities to a close. "It isn't going to be enough to hope we can get to the next world they attack in time to save it. What we need is some way to protect those worlds - the very world-hearts themselves. As it stands, all the Heartless need is a way to the world heart and it's over."

"But you already have an idea, don't you?" said Aerith, who'd been watching the king closely through his speech.

Mickey looked momentarily surprised, then smiled at her. "Well, maybe. I don't want to place too much hope on a hunch just yet, but I might know where to start."

Malificent's temporary defeat may not have been the final overwhelming victory they'd hoped for, but it did mean that life calmed down at the castle for a while. Indeed, beyond the acquisition of a few new pieces of information, life returned to much the state it had possessed before the first star disappeared. With one exception: Cid was leaving. He had plans about starting a shop of his own – something in a different theme to the one the castle ran. Indeed, by the time the king returned he must have been thinking about it for some time, for he was packed and ready to go before he said a word.

"It's not I don't appreciate your hospitality all these years," he told the king with uncharacteristic trepidation. "But I'm not cut out for all this nobility and castle life, and saving the universe is wearing me out. The Gummi ships can take on just about anything the universe can throw at them by now. There'll be more for me to help out with over at the town than here, and if you do ever need any repairs, I'll never be more than a few hours away." He was obviously worried that all this would make him sound ungrateful, but equally eager to be away.

The king was entirely understanding. He smiled warmly and shook Cid by the hand. "We'll all be sorry to see you go. It's been an honour to work with you, and I think I speak for everyone here when I say I can't thank you enough for all the help you've given us. Take good care of yourself."

Cid turned a shade of red at the praise, even as he grinned with relief. "Then I'll be seeing you, and the brats. Stop by any time, I'll be set up before you know it."

They saw him off that same afternoon with minimal fuss and fanfare – as Cid himself wanted. Traverse Town might no longer have been growing at any more than the rate of the odd straggler here and there, but it was big enough to be starting to develop its own economy. Cid hadn't been kidding when he said there was plenty more there for someone with his skills to contribute to.

After Malificent's defeat, their research too took on some new themes. It was an activity several of the castle inhabitants (chiefly the king, Aerith and Merlin) had undertaken on and off over the years, with limited results. Finding the information they needed, even in a library as extensive as the castle's, was a long and tedious process. Their work was not utterly without fruit, even if most of what they had discovered was interesting primarily from an academic standpoint – they had discovered, for example, that this was not the first time the Heartless had ever appeared, nor the first a world had ever been destroyed, though details beyond that were often sketchy at best. The king himself had always been particularly interested in tales surrounding a legendary item known as they keyblade which would come up occasionally in the course of their study – so much so that Yuffie and Squall were by now being brought up on such stories. Now, however, even much of his research began to take a different direction.

You could not get very far researching the Heartless without hearing about the darkness – more than you ever wanted to hear, in Aerith's case at least, for one fact which came up in almost every chronicle which so much as breached the subject was how easily the slightest interest in the dark could grow to corrupt one's very soul. It was scary stuff to read, to suggest that merely seeking to learn about the Heartless might be enough to begin to make you one of them. However, since returning it had become the subject that interested the king more than anything.

It worried Aerith to see him venturing into such territory, but when she brought it up the king told her, "I appreciate your concern, but those same sources you're talking about make it clear that a strong enough heart won't be consumed by the darkness. If we let ourselves become so scared we don't even try to understand the place the Heartless came from, then we have little hope of ever defeating the real thing." And despite her concerns, Aerith trusted the king enough to trust his judgement on this matter too.

It wasn't long before even Aerith couldn't deny the king had a point - they would soon learn, for example, that the Heartless did not merely travel by means of corridors of darkness, there was an entire, unexplored world of darkness which such creatures could reach. If they were ever going to get to the roots of all this, it might just be that the answers would only be found there.

* * *

It was a dark time when the next star disappeared – it had seemed for so long so sure those days were over with. Worse still was the necessity of accounting for how it had even been possible. Could it really be that Malificent had returned again so soon? 

None of the new arrivals to Traverse Town had ever seen or heard of anyone like her.

More were to follow. Things never escalated back to the level of crisis of the peak of Malificent's rampage - not until years later - but once or twice a year, as if just to remind them that the enemy was still alive and kicking, a new star would vanish. It became clear that the Heartless had little need of Malificent to wreck havoc. Anyone with some evil in their heart could attract them, anyone with more could command them, and even where such incentives were absent, the Heartless were perfectly able to cause trouble with no outside prompting at all. Invasions arrived on a dozen worlds, some that faired better than others. The Coliseum, not only handled their first assault with ease, within a week they had the Heartless stacked in cages a mountain high to use as challengers in the ring. Other worlds held out of their own accord with varying degrees of success. The king and his makeshift army did what they could, but even in the face of such trouble they couldn't spend their whole lives in a state of constant panic. Some days it felt as though the Heartless had become a simple fact of life which was there to stay. A solution still seemed as far away as it had ever been.

The main difference to their lives in those years, thanks to Cid's relocation and the suddenly expanded state of Traverse Town, was that they spend a lot more time at their neighbouring world. Cid was always happy enough to see them – the man was clearly settling into his new world unexpectedly well, and was more at ease with life now there was some distance between himself and the castle.

It was on one such visit that the Heartless made their first appearance in the growing town.

The timing was less than ideal. Cid was out testing one of the ships following some work to fix some minor engine problems, and the children had been left to mind his shop when one of the town's citizens came running in to report just exactly what had been sighted in a warehouse in one of the other districts. There was no way to go for help until Cid got back, and even then the return trip to the castle would take hours, and they didn't have time to waste. Aerith had no-one else to send, and it was obvious within a glance that she wasn't going to get away without taking Yuffie and Squall along. Leaving their informant with a message for Cid, they rushed off to find the warehouse and see just how bad things might be going to get.

The place they were directed to was fortunately not hard to find, and the Heartless infestation proved to be not nearly as bad as they might have feared, as it consisted of only a single creature. It was one of the smaller floating types, bright blue, and looked more disoriented than really dangerous, as it was wandering around as if it didn't know what to do with itself. It would float about halfway across the building, vanish, and then reappear again back where it started. Wherever it had expected to emerge from the dark corridors must have been somewhere else.

"It looks lost," Yuffie whispered from behind the pile of boxes they were using to hide from the thing.

"It must be. I don't think it meant to come here. Maybe that's why there's only one," Aerith agreed.

"You know what it'll do to the people here if we let it go. We've got to do something about it now," Squall hissed back urgently.

Aerith nodded. Mentally, she took stock of their position. They weren't strictly defenseless. Although Yuffie still maintained that the king wasn't anything like a proper ninja and even Squall considered his practice sword a pretty poor substitute for a real gunblade, they both approached their training with a single-mindedness that was genuinely unusual for children of their age. For herself, between Merlin and her mother's instruction she had a few useful spells in her repertoire, though she could hardly yet boast anything like her mother's aptitude with the powerful holy spells that had driven the Heartless away that night long ago. The trouble was that none of them had come prepared for this. Yuffie, if she knew Yuffie at all, probably had something she could throw. Squall didn't have anything in the way of weaponry. Even five years on, the gunblade was still too heavy for him to swing easily.

It would have to do. The Heartless might not be very smart, but they couldn't trust that it wouldn't find its way out before help could arrive. "We need a plan. We…" There was a faint jingling noise from above them. In unison so perfect it would have been comical under any other circumstances, the three of them looked up to find a small, blue blob of a creature floating directly over their heads.

There was a beat, during which no-one moved. This was not the best tactical maneuver for any of them, motivated mostly by shock and partially by mad hope that maybe the Heartless somehow wouldn't notice them if they didn't move, which was quite the opposite of the truth.

The creature swooped at Yuffie. Caught in a terrified moment of not knowing which way to dodge, Yuffie didn't move until Squall grabbed her by the arm and yanked her out of the way. The two of them landed in an untidy pile in the corner. Aerith scrambled the other way as fast as she could manage, the space behind the boxes too small for her to be able to move freely, and tried to bring any useful spell to mind. The Heartless was faster than her. There was a tinkling noise and a flash of cold blue. The spell that hit her was the least of ice magic, little worse than a snowball to the face, but it temporarily blinded her and destroyed her concentration; the spell she'd had almost ready flew straight out of her mind.

In the corner, Yuffie and Squall managed to untangle themselves enough for Yuffie to reach her pockets and start sorting through for something useful. "Hey you!" she hollered at the Heartless and hurled a handful of shuriken - Aerith had known she'd have some with her. Her aim was dead on, but yelling first just to get the its attention away from Aerith had been a mistake - the Heartless had already turned and swung easily upwards out of the way, then made a quick maneuver sideways in time to avoid a ball of sparks which crashed instead into a wall of boxes, leaving a wide brown burn mark. Aerith's eyes cleared enough for her to make out Squall standing with one arm stretched out in front of him, in exactly the place the spell looked to have come from. The lessons he'd been having from Merlin must have been really paying off, but the Heartless was too agile for any of them to hit.

The tinkling noise again alerted Aerith just in time to come up with a reflect spell before a significantly larger ball of ice made it to Squall, but the sight of the spell rebounding inches from his face left the boy nearly as startled as he would have been had it made contact. The last one left, Yuffie gave a shriek of battle, scrambled up on to one of the boxes and made a flying leap for the Heartless, narrowly catching it by its feet. The creature struggled to get free, but it wasn't used to aiming its ice straight down and wasn't nearly strong enough to lift both itself and a twelve-year-old ninja. Yuffie clenched her eyes closed and held on for all she was worth, yelling out a litany that consisted largely of "Now! Nownownownownownownow!"

Squall found his feet again and readied another fire spell. This time, he didn't miss, and the Heartless exploded in a puff of ice-dust and sparks. The force knocked Yuffie off her feet as well, but she was only down for a moment before she had her eyes open again and was back on her feet yelling "Yeah! We got him!" and leaping and spinning around so hard she barely kept her balance. Squall was staring at his hands like he'd never seen them before, but didn't turn around fast enough for the others to miss seeing that rare grin. Aerith brushed herself off and went to check whether the other two were alright. They both had a few scratches from their tumble into the corner and Yuffie had some ash on her face and in her hair, but nothing worse. She released a sigh of relief.

"Wait until we tell the king," said Squall, still trying not to grin. Aerith coughed pointedly.

"What you both just did was very dangerous, you know," she told them sternly. Both the little ones looked very slightly sheepish, though not at all ashamed. Aerith let her expression drop into a smile. "Well done, both of you."

In an ideal world, this would have been just about enough excitement for one day. Yuffie was practically skipping as they made their way back out of the warehouse. The glow of victory lasted them all the way back to first district, but Traverse Town had one more surprise left for them. They were just passing through the last gateway, when a pillar of green fire appeared in the centre of the square, resolving into a tall woman in a long black dress and horned hood.

"So this is where my dear Heartless have been disappearing to," she declared aloud, as if the universe itself were expected to pay close attention to her every word. "Who would have thought this pitiful little world could have grown so fast?"

The children didn't need to scattered shrieks and slamming of doors from around the square to identify her. "Malificent!" exclaimed Squall before Aerith could stop him. The sight of that same woman turning towards Squall's voice was one of the most terrifying things Aerith had ever experienced.

The witch looked them over with a scornful eye. "Well, well, well, what have we here? If it isn't the lost children of the hollow garden."

Aerith's eyes widened fractionally – how could she have known?

"It _was_ you!" yelled Squall, an anger sounding in his voice which Aerith had never heard nor imagined before in anyone so young.

The witch laughed, a horrible rising cackle of a sound. "I'll have to thank you for providing me with such a splendid castle." Her voice dripped with false courtesy. "Truly, I could not have dreamed of any dwelling so appropriate."

"Lord Ansem's castle?" Aerith could scarcely believe her ears. "It's still… you've…?"

"Foolish children." Malificent crowed. "You understand so little of the great events coming to pass. I shall take such pleasure in letting you witness your new home consumed just as the old one. Give your miserable king my greetings." With another screeching laugh she disappeared in a final swirl of green flame.

First district did not just house Cid's shop, it was also the oldest and most familiar part of the town. It was going to be long time before it felt the same again.

* * *

The atmosphere on the Gummi on their return trip was far more subdued than their earlier victory should have allowed. Cid responded to the news about as well as anyone could have expected him to.

"Someone remind me," he grumbled, "just exactly how we wound up _never getting around_ to going back to check whether some evil witch had taken up house in our own goddamn castle?"

There were answers to that – the Heartless that surrounded their old home were to this day the nastiest they'd ever encountered. They'd visited the sites of other vanished stars and found nothing remained. Cid's question didn't really invite those kinds of answers.

"Why would she go all that way just for one stupid Heartless anyway?" Squall complained. He might just have been whining, but it was a valid point.

Aerith thought back through everything she could remember Malificent saying. "She made it sound as though it wasn't the first," she said carefully.

"There haven't been any others," argued Squall. "Someone would have seen them and told us if there were, right?"

"Well maybe the others didn't get stuck like that one," Yuffie piped up. With all the excitement on this trip she'd completely forgotten to be motion sick. "Maybe they just popped up – bang – went 'where's this stupid place, I'm not meant to be here' and popped out again."

Yuffie was rambling, but she was also making a certain amount of sense, Aerith decided. "We must be lucky they haven't found and attacked any of the people yet." It went unsaid there was no guarantee they'd stay as lucky as that in the future. Gloom descended even further over the three of them.

"I hate this," said Squall. "All this stuff keeps happening and all we can do is watch."

"Well, Squall…" Aerith began.

"It's not Squall anymore. It's Leon," said Leon.

Aerith paused. "Well then, Leon, what do you suggest?"

* * *

Their decision surprised the king even more than the news of Malificent's return. "You're leaving?"

"Your majesty," Aerith spoke up, "We'll always be grateful for your generosity in all the time you've let us stay here, but we've decided. The town is where almost everyone who's ever seen the Heartless and survived is gathered. The town is where we have the best chance of finding out what we need to know. Besides, if the Heartless are starting to appear there they'll need people who can defend them." Leon and Yuffie looked both terrified and determined at once.

The king looked fondly from face to face. "Ah, children," he sighed sadly. "They always grow up so much faster than you expect. Well, if that's what you've all decided, then there's no stopping you. Do you have somewhere to stay once you've arrived there? I don't want to cause Cid too much trouble – I think he's enjoying his freedom too much."

Aerith shook her head. "It's okay. We have somewhere else in mind to stay." On previous visits, Aerith had gotten to know an old widow by the name of Elmyra, who was by now one of the town's longest residing inhabitants, and who had made it clear she'd be perfectly happy to let them stay with her.

The king gave a satisfied nod. "I've got some advice for you before you go. I know how important everything you're trying to achieve is – to all of us, to all the worlds, but I want you all to remember not to let that purpose become everything you are. None of your parents," and here something caught in Aerith's throat, "would have wanted you all to spend your whole lives thinking only of revenge, or the past, or even the battle to come. There'll be more to life than that. I'm not going to make you all promise me, but all the same, I hope you won't forget.

"Another thing Squall – I'm sorry, Leon, right? I've got something for you before you go."

The king's gift was a light weight, replica gunblade, not quite an exact copy, but made to a very similar scaled design. "It'll be a few years yet before you're ready to use the real thing, but you've proven today you're well and truly ready for a real weapon. I've been waiting for the right opportunity to pass this on to you."

Leon looked at the weapon as though the fates of all the worlds might have rested on it. He turned it over in his hands a few times, feeling its weight, then swung it easily through three dangerous looking but actually finely controlled loops in front and behind him to come to rest over his shoulder. "Thanks, your majesty." He bit out, in a voice that sounded about to crack.

The king smiled. "Then I'll just remind you of what Cid said when he left – we're never more than a few hours away. But just one more thing – It may be that this is something bigger than any of us can hope to fix, but there are still going to be things we can find that we can do. I think you're going to be right about the town being the place to look. And if that's the case, there's something I want you all to keep an eye out for..."

* * *

Before the end of the week they were packed and ready to go. None of them had ever accumulated a great store of possessions they couldn't part with.

Moving to another world wasn't the beginning or the end of anything. Five years had gone, but really they were not much more than children even now. They still didn't have more than the vaguest of ideas how to restore their world, not beyond the few hints left to them by the king, or where to go from here. But they had a goal, they had a place to start that journey, and until the day their world was restored they'd always have something to look forward to. The rest could work itself out on the way.

* * *

**Edit **(of the now massively overdue variety, but at least I get around to these things eventually) The two final parts to the series have been posted up as separate stories under the titles of _Cloud_ and _The Long Way Home_. Never did quite find a way to format the omake chapter in a way that worked here, as it makes heavy use of the strikethrough, which ff-dot-net won't let us use in fic (insert grumbling here) - but it's posted over at my livejournal and listed under the KH fic section of my memories if people want to go find it. Finally, my beta reader for the last two parts was kind enough to draw me some lovely fanart, which is linked from my author profile.

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End file.
